


Australian Sky

by midnightdiddle (gooseberry)



Category: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Codepedence, F/M, Friendship/Love, Gen, Injury Recovery, Western, real life fiction - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-21
Updated: 2007-12-21
Packaged: 2019-01-31 04:36:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12674562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gooseberry/pseuds/midnightdiddle
Summary: Butch is gone one morning, when Sundance wakes up in the cold, shoulder aching. He doesn't think it at first, waiting to hear Butch whoop from outside, riding around on that stupid bicycle, or baiting Etta's steer, or just dancing with Etta, bootsteps on the front porch.It's Australia, though, Australia's shade of blue that stares him in the face, and Australia's air that sits heavy in his throat. He digs through Butch's things, mostly still there, and then goes out to the ragged stable. Butch's horse is gone, saddle and bridle, and Sundance curses as he throws down hay.He's sitting in front of the house, coat hanging too loose, when Butch rides up, looking ridiculously pleased with himself. Sundance lifts his chin, tugs his hat further down, and waits.--Post-movie.  'cause I believe they made it, damnit.  Butch, Sundance, and Australia: things that break the world.





	Australian Sky

He limps through Australia, a hand pressed against his side. Sundance watches him go, the way Butch fades into the sky and the ground, the edges of his body shimmering in the heat. Butch turns back, smiles as he lifts his head to look at the sky.

"Good plan," Butch says, congratulating himself like they're not two cripples clinging to Australia's dirt. Sundance nods.

"Good plan," he agrees. "Not even a garden."

Butch laughs until his breath hitches, and then he leans against his horse, hands wrapped the stirrup, holding himself upright. Sundance looks away, looks up at the blue sky and the twisted rocks, and nods again.

"Good place."

x

Sundance writes a letter to Etta while Butch is sleeping. _Australia_ , the letter says, _is hot. Feels a lot like home. Good summer._

When Butch wakes up, jerking awake with a cough and groan, muttering something about coffee, Sundance shoves the letter across the table, pushes the pen with it.

"Sign it," he says, and Butch looks at the letter, looks at Sundance. He signs _James Ryan_ , then below it, with smaller, tighter flourishes, _Butch Cassidy_.

Sundance burns the letter that night, while Butch watches, and writes a new one in the morning.

 _Darling_ , it says, _I've made it to Australia. Jack is doing well; he aches from the war. How are the children?_

He mails the letter on the last day of summer, and rides back home, shoulder dragging too low, hand still numb on the saddle. He stumbles when he swings off the horse, and Butch laughs, loud and hoarse. Sundance shrugs, pulls at the saddlebags, and sits in the dirt of Australia.

x

Etta's letter comes before winter. _Dear_ , her clean writing says, _I had feared the worst. Armies are cruel, and I'm glad you suffered only what you did._

 _The children_ , it says, _are gone. Give my brother my love._

Butch reads it over Sundance's shoulder, and says, "All dead, then?"

"Sounds like," Sundance agrees, and folds the letter small as he can, sets it in the heel of his boot. He steps on Etta's words, always so smart, and wishes she could carry him again.

x

Butch is gone one morning, when Sundance wakes up in the cold, shoulder aching. He doesn't think it at first, waiting to hear Butch whoop from outside, riding around on that stupid bicycle, or baiting Etta's steer, or just dancing with Etta, bootsteps on the front porch.

It's Australia, though, Australia's shade of blue that stares him in the face, and Australia's air that sits heavy in his throat. He digs through Butch's things, mostly still there, and then goes out to the ragged stable. Butch's horse is gone, saddle and bridle, and Sundance curses as he throws down hay.

He's sitting in front of the house, coat hanging too loose, when Butch rides up, looking ridiculously pleased with himself. Sundance lifts his chin, tugs his hat further down, and waits.

"Hey, Sundance," Butch says, nearly falling off the horse, and his pain looks nearly like a smile from where Sundance is slouching. Sundance flicks a hand against the butt of his pistol, wishes he had a shotgun.

"Where you been?"

Butch looks sharp, and catches on quick, like always. He steps to the side, not back or front, and shoves his hands into his pockets, smooth like talking. "Nowhere much," he says, like Sundance isn't running his thumb over the butt of his pistol, over and again.

"Where you been, Butch?" Sundance asks again, and he wants to kick something, send it flying. Butch takes another step, forward this time, and he's lifting his chin, rolling his shoulders, like he always did when the boys got too rowdy and the girls too fast.

"Nowhere much, Sundance," Butch says, smooth smooth, like the silk dresses Etta had mooned over in New York. "Just lookin' 'round."

The accent's smooth, too, like a taste of home, and Sundance knows he's being played, just like all of Butch's boys. He waits until Butch is closer, then swings out, his fist catching the edge of Butch's shoulder. Enough to knock Butch off-balance, but not enough to hurt either of them.

Everything, though, hurts now. Etta's letter, folded in his shoe, and Butch taking off in the middle of the night, nothing gone but him and his horse. Everything hurts now, and Sundance feels lame in the saddle.

"A bank," Butch says appeasingly, stepping back faster than Sundance has seen in months. "Was lookin' at a bank."

" _No_ ," Sundance says, and he goes inside the house, sits at the table, and drinks the coffee grown cold.

x

"There's a good bank nearby. Wouldn't be hard," Butch says, clanging his way through the dishes. There's not much, just a few cracked, misshapen bowls, and Butch drops them onto the table, pushes one across towards Sundance. The porridge looks lumpy, too brown in some parts, too white in others. Sundance runs a finger through the porridge, watches it gloop.

"We've gone clean," Sundance says, scraping his finger against the edge of the bowl. There's still porridge, and so he licks his finger, grimaces. "God, Butch, this shit--"

"Shut up," Butch says, and he sounds angry. Sundance shuts up, momentarily startled, and watches Butch sit with a wince, grab his own bowl of porridge.

"The bank," Butch says again, hours later, when he's leaning back against the wall, blinking sleepy-eyed in the firelight. Sundance grunts, turns his pistol over, checking it again.

"No job, Butch," he says, and rubs a finger across the barrel, metal cold and smooth.

"Right," Butch says. "Gone clean."

x

Butch always limps the most in the morning, when the air's cold and snapping in the room. He's angriest then, too, angry at Australia and Bolivia and the world, and even Sundance. Sundance stays out of his way, skirting around until the lines on Butch's face ease, and Butch starts making the strange half-hum he makes when he's thinking.

"Hell," Butch says cheerfully, like he's just had a woman or too much to drink or a train to talk down, shake loose of bills and coins. Sundance grins, shrugs, and goes back out to the shaky stable to throw down hay for the horses.

Butch catches him in the dirt, grinning wide and drunk on spring. "Should teach you to swim," he says, like it's some bright idea of his, and Sundance nods, because Butch never looks this happy anymore.

"Right," he says, and Butch pushes past him, grabbing bridle and saddle and horse.

The waterhole is cold, shoots up and down Sundance's limbs like hot metal, burning in its cold. He gasps, drags back his hair, and thinks this might be one of Butch's stupider ideas, right up there with chasing off their own horses and leaping into rivers from cliffs.

Butch is laughing, though, the scars across his side and stomach stretching with his movements. Sundance watches the pull of muscle and skin, still too pink and new, and lets Butch push him deeper into the water, until Sundance feels like he's drowning.

"Stupid idea," Sundance spits out with water, but without any heart, and Butch nods, looking up at the sky.

"Not a good place," Butch says. "Next one will be better."

Sundance doesn't know if he's talking about Australia or the waterhole or _Bolivia_ , and doesn't want to know. He drags himself out of the water, dirt caking onto him as mud, and throws himself on the ground, tired and cold.

"Next one," he agrees. "Next one will be good."


End file.
